In this Episode we have a really great open conversation with Gian Seehra, about his experience post his role at Octopus Ventures, advising and supporting early stage founders. Gian has been a part of over $300m in venture funding in his career and has now helped founders raise raise $80m from pre-seed to Series A since starting advising founders!

We talk about how you square the circle of pre-revenue investment by encouraging VCs not to be weighed down by legacy models and encouraging them to start to use tools that enhance the ability of the founder to be able to demonstrate their validity and worth, outside of and before the metrics of revenue kick in.

We explore how it is not expressed enough in the venture space, that the true purpose and driver of Product Market Fit within a seed round is not to prove and underscore those revenue metrics but instead demonstrate that with this capital injection into a startup, there is a path and a reasonable expectation that the founder can then get to Product Market Fit within the next 2-3 years. A small inflection and nuance but critical point of difference.

We discuss the rise of solo capitalists and how their deep expertise and sector value add could make them increasingly important to recalibrating this conversation. We also touch on how both for an investor and founder building a personal brand is going to become more and more important in order to elevate and differentiate yourself within the emerging FounderTech landscape.

Finally we talk about how Gian’s experience both as a VC and now as an independent advisor has given rise to his unique Fundraising Founder Framework. A framework that he is currently using to evaluate and advise the founders that he now talks to and engages with.

Connect with Gian

• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/gianseehra

Widen your perspective with these APIs:

• https://www.shortform.com/summary/what-you-do-is-who-you-are-summary-ben-horowitz